Long Beach Bathing Pavilion

The Brutalist Long Beach Bathing Pavilion on the foreshore of Long Beach, Sandy Bay is an integral part of this popular recreation area, nestling into the bank and protected from the suburban vehicular traffic by a row of well-established pine trees. Designed to replace the old bathing sheds on the site, the pavilion was intended to accommodate a restaurant at the first floor, but this was never built.

Emphasising honesty in the expression of materials, Brutalism presents bulky concrete forms in antithesis to the sleek cladding of modernism that came before it. The irony of this “romantic” return of honesty and integrity in “brutally frank” buildings was the precision required to construct the concrete formwork. And so this bathing pavilion is more a sculpture than a building. Its pre-cast concrete panel relief by artist Ronald Sinclair is 27.5m long and was cast in the beach sand right in front of the pavilion using hairspray to protect the sand moulds from the pressure of casting. The relief directly references the foreshore, recalling the apparently aimless sand constructions often found along the beach.

Address: Long Beach, Sandy Bay

Highlights: Ronald Sinclair's 1960s motifs, cast in concrete in the sand using hairspray